[HN Gopher] How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports
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How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Author : jim-jim-jim
Score : 450 points
Date : 2022-10-12 03:28 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reverbmachine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reverbmachine.com)
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Lets not forget "Music For Real Airports" [0], matches the mood
| of the modern air traveller by being a lot more depressing.
|
| [0]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icnjrONRCdQ&list=PLCpWLhn2tf...
| davidhariri wrote:
| What luck! I have just recently been listening to all of Eno's
| Ambient albums. Thank you!
| msluyter wrote:
| Wow, this brings back memories! My roommate in college was really
| into Brian Eno, and I recall many a night when we'd go to sleep
| to this. HN is pretty great sometimes.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| My roommate had "Discrete Music" and an automated turntable,
| and would leave the first side on repeat for hours. I could
| probably hum the whole thing from memory.
| slickrick216 wrote:
| One of Brian Enos mentees is now an upcoming Producer/DJ. Check
| out Fred again https://youtu.be/c0-hvjV2A5Y one of the best
| boiler room sets ever in my opinion.
| locusofself wrote:
| Fred Again makes great dance music, reminds me of how I felt
| when I was much younger and discovering great dance music.
| "Upcoming" is understating it though - he is pretty _huge_
| right now.
| tebbers wrote:
| I spent my adolescent years listening to Eno and this album in
| particular while studying, so this means a lot to me. Thanks for
| sharing.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| In the early 90s I was flying through O'Hare and had to go
| through the famous neon-festooned Sky's the Limit installation.
| Very cool, but then I noticed they were playing "Music for
| Airports" at an airport and figured I had come full circle.
|
| https://www.codaworx.com/projects/skys-the-limit-united-airl...
| chaosprint wrote:
| This is a really well-written article and the experience on the
| website is great.
|
| It looks that the audio files are downloadable from the source
| file.
|
| So I downloaded 3 mp3 files from the website, drag-drop them into
| the glicol web ide (https://glicol.org/tour#samples), and write
| the following music code:
|
| // you need to drag eno_mfa_choir_01.mp3 here \/ and the same for
| the rest
|
| ~t1: speed 0.3 >> seq 60 >> sp \eno_mfa_choir_01 >> lpf 500 1.0
| >> mul ~mod1
|
| ~mod1: sin 0.1 >> add 1 >> mul 0.1
|
| ~t2: speed 0.5 >> seq 72 >> sp \eno_mfa_choir_02 >> lpf 600 1.0
| >> mul ~mod2
|
| ~mod2: sin 0.2 >> delayms 100 >> add 1 >> mul 0.3 >> mul ~mod3
|
| ~t3: speed 0.5 >> seq 67 >> sp \eno_mfa_choir_03 >> lpf 3000 1.0
| >> mul ~mod3
|
| ~mod3: sin 0.3 >> add 1 >> mul 0.2
|
| o: mix ~t.. >> plate 0.1
|
| // by changing the numbers you get lots of variations.
|
| // hope this helps you understand better how this form of music
| is made
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Anyone have some other ambient works similar to Eno's? Preferably
| something more landscapey like music for airports or Apollo.
|
| Some of my favorites include Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Robin
| Guthrie (So Many Short Years Ago), Brian McBride (Overture for
| other halfs), and Helios.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Listen to this radio show on KEXP:
| https://www.kexp.org/shows/pacific-notions/
|
| It's every Sunday early morning Pacific time but you can listen
| to recent shows in their streaming archive. The whole show is
| modern ambient and similar music, it's absolutely fantastic and
| a great way to hear new artists in the genre.
|
| edit: lol someone already posted it. This should give you an
| idea of how good this show is if multiple people are suggesting
| it. I've never heard any other show/podcast/or anything as
| comprehensive about new ambient music as this one.
| acdanger wrote:
| It's fantastic. I also really enjoy the blues show the
| immediately follows it, Preachin' the Blues. Bit of a
| contrast but the curation on both shows is stellar.
| pbronez wrote:
| BT did a pair of ambient albums in 2019 that I really enjoy:
|
| Everything You're Searching For Is Between Here and You
|
| I also appreciate Brain FM [0]. It makes it easy to dial in
| background music that matches my mood and activity.
|
| [0] https://www.brain.fm
| dmurdoch wrote:
| The band The Glitch Mob maintain an ambient playlist on spotify
| that I listen to constantly while working. They update it
| really regularly (4 day since last song added right now).
|
| https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1sJKFhnCYglVaDXtA2y7Ao?si=...
| readingnews wrote:
| There is a label called Past Inside the Present that does a lot
| of landscape/soundscape/dreamscape recordings. They are on
| bandcamp and https://www.pastinsidethepresent.com/ (I am not
| affiliated, I just have a fair number of their recordings).
| Check out Zake (I think he is the owner too) and also 36.
| jjulius wrote:
| This should cover a bunch of different Ambient styles, but all
| of the artists are absolutely fantastic and worth digging into.
| I'm definitely leaving out a fuckload more, but there are a ton
| of great suggestions in the other responses, too. Happy
| listening! :D Biosphere Ryuichi Sakamoto
| Loscil A Strangely Isolated Place (record label & mix
| series) Silent Season (record label) Kelly Moran
| Rafael Anton Irisarri Harold Budd Steve Roach
| Terre Thaemlitz Gel-Sol Koss Nils Frahm
| FAX Records Pete Namlook Hiroshi Yoshimura
| Benoit Pioulard Carlos Nino Woob (particularly
| woob1194) ASC Autumn of Communion Wanderwelle
| Celer Christina Vantzou Julianna Barwick Mary
| Lattimore Grouper Suzanne Ciani MPU101
| Deru Lusine (Language Barrier in particular, his only
| full-Ambient album)
| radley wrote:
| There's also mainstream artists/series like:
|
| The Orb
|
| KLF (Chill Out)
|
| Tipper
|
| Irresistible Force / Mixmaster Morris
|
| Future Sound of London
|
| Higher Intelligence Agency
|
| Sun Electric
|
| Vermont
|
| Erased Tapes (label)
|
| Apollo (label)
|
| Armadillo (label)
|
| 12K (label)
|
| Pop Ambient (series)
|
| Some (perhaps) less-known: Masayoshi Fujita, Yutaka Hirose,
| Void
|
| Plus 10k+ electronic music artists that dabble in ambient /
| chill out.
|
| _Self-plug: I DJ 2-3x month for Sunday Sundowns with The
| Ambient Mafia_
| lukeh wrote:
| Great suggestions, to which I would add Marty Hicks.
| omnimus wrote:
| Biosphere for sure. Also William Basinski who is somewhat
| hated but if you love endless loops its great.
| and0 wrote:
| The Disintegration Loops is lovely and I found it very
| thought-provoking. The concept of hearing the medium being
| destroyed, in this sort of breathing / heartbeat / day and
| night cycle, is a very powerful way to think about
| mortality.
|
| One of the tracks still sounds like you're hearing someone
| drowning over the course of 17 minutes and it's terrifying.
| It's the first track here, though I believe they are named
| / ordered incorrectly. Just comparing 2 minutes in vs 15
| minutes.. it still creeps me out.
| devindotcom wrote:
| Nice list. I would second Ryuichi Sakamoto, Loscil, Julianna
| Barwick, Mary Lattimore, and Grouper for sure and there are
| lots of other good ones on there.
|
| I'd add Windy & Carl, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Yui
| Odonera (lots from the Serein label actually), Max Richter,
| and most of all Stars of the Lid.
| jmclnx wrote:
| This free stream:
|
| http://echoesofbluemars.org/
|
| various artist including Brian Eno. Listening to the bluemars
| stream now :)
| QuizzicalCarbon wrote:
| You might try Deus Arrakis by Klaus Schulze
| https://youtu.be/UPCq1o4yvow
| zeruch wrote:
| I'd look into stuff like Harold Budd, William Basinski, or Jon
| Hassell (who in turn influenced Eno; you can hear some
| similarities but also radical differences because Hassell
| played processed trumpet and had a much more dense sound
| palette. Albums like "Fascinoma" or "The Surgeon of the Night
| Sky Restores Dead Things By he Power of Sound" for starters,
| but they did one album together in the early 80s called
| "Possible Musics" worth a listen)
| patchorang wrote:
| I slightly different flavor of ambient, but I love this
| playlist.
| https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0FRsEBJWjCWOyia0Yyz7ak?si=...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Ulrich Schnauss (a bit more of a beat, but still extremely
| minimal) - Far Away Trains Passing By, A Strangely Isolated
| Place.
| valdiorn wrote:
| I absolutely love "Music for REAL Airports" by The Black Dog.
|
| An obvious poke at the original, it features a darker, moody
| and slightly unsettling ambience, with some minimal percussive
| elements in a couple of tracks. It's meant to remind you of the
| real experience of being in an airport, which isn't exactly a
| pleasant experience :)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icnjrONRCdQ&list=OLAK5uy_lxK...
| greenie_beans wrote:
| not quite like eno but still great ambient album, green by
| hiroshi yoshimura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx7CyMZVhHY
| pimeys wrote:
| I didn't find him from the mentions yet so I'll add Gas. Start
| with Zauberberg, Konigsforst and Pop, and if you like them get
| completely lost with the rest of his productions.
| ceravis wrote:
| Kyle Bobby Dunn (apparently he's done some unkind things in the
| past, but the music stands alone):
| https://open.spotify.com/album/2NVB7DIA1wTUEM7KmXnWeZ
|
| Hotel Neon:
| https://open.spotify.com/album/4qpdELAzEbL1nI8fvWtLLE
| RHSman2 wrote:
| Very musical ambient compared to Eno but I love this currently:
| https://open.spotify.com/artist/2aGCFk3Mvhs9Am7JHwoyRr?si=Ci...
| swayvil wrote:
| Tycho.
|
| Eno's experimental ambient collab with Fripp is maybe a bit
| heavy.
|
| Some of M83
|
| Lots of Boards of Canada might fit
|
| Explore Am Boy and Teen Daze
|
| Clocolan
|
| maybe Lorn
|
| Sarin Sunday
|
| try Freescha, but it's kinda depressing
| tebbers wrote:
| You might like https://ambientsleepingpill.com/
| tarboreus wrote:
| Look into Japanese environmental music:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx7CyMZVhHY
| anthk wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9UtpJ2iAQA
| eej71 wrote:
| You may enjoy Patrick O'Hearn - particularly something like
| Still Standing from the Slow Time album.
| pixelrevision wrote:
| Stars of the lid and Steve Roach have a lot of comparable
| stuff.
| have_faith wrote:
| Burial (his ambient tracks like State Forest, Forgive), Huerco,
| Biosphere
| heed wrote:
| Check out the album "Tape Loops" by Chris Walla, artist Loscil,
| and John Cage's "In a Landscape".
| adriancooney wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendations. Some of my fav ambient(ish)
| albums that might fit in that list:
|
| - William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops
|
| - Jon Hopkins - Music For Psychedelic Therapy
|
| - Erland Cooper - Music for Growing Flowers
| jollyllama wrote:
| Jordan De La Sierra
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kGay5yTzELiOx8...
| rchaud wrote:
| If you like Robin Guthrie, you may like the ambient music of
| Harold Budd, one of his collaborators. One of the their cool
| joint projects is the instrumental score for the film
| Mysterious Skin from 2004.
| rwmj wrote:
| In the 1990s Virgin released a 2 CD sampler followed by a whole
| series:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Ambient
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Ambient_series
|
| The first pair of CDs is basically a "who's who" of ambient
| artists up to that point.
| justincormack wrote:
| Steve Reich was another tape loop pioneer.
| jupiter90000 wrote:
| I like Eno, Eluvium and Helios and these are some artists that
| have similar music I've found that I didn't see mentioned so
| far:
|
| Ryuichi Sakamoto (sample piece: solari)
|
| Roedelius (sample piece: A Short Walk in the Hills)
|
| Vangelis (sample piece: Memories of Green)
| anthk wrote:
| Jun Fukamachi - Quark
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9UtpJ2iAQA
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Madis, Sea of Tranquility, Ambient Edit (2020) is really good.
| elsyx wrote:
| Music for Programming[0] is a nice site with mixes of music,
| most of it ambient, intended to provide focus while
| programming. Each mix has a setlist so you can follow along and
| perhaps find some new artists to explore.
|
| [0] https://musicforprogramming.net/
| acdanger wrote:
| KEXP out of Seattle has a good program on Sunday mornings with
| music that often falls in this genre.
| https://www.kexp.org/shows/pacific-notions/
|
| Also, the blog Headphone Commute has some excellent ambient
| showcases. Suggest finding their year-end lists and listening
| through: https://headphonecommute.com/
| https://headphonecommute.com/best-of-lists/headphone-commute...
| leokennis wrote:
| I love ambient music. Some favorites in the same corner of the
| genre as Eno:
|
| Pauline Oliveros - Deep Listening
|
| Virginia Astley - In Gardens Where We Feel Secure
|
| Machinefabriek - Slaapzucht
|
| Biosphere - The Hilvarenbeek Recordings (anything Biosphere is
| sublime but a lot of it is darker ambient than Eno)
|
| I could go on forever. But check these out.
|
| Also, every release from this label is gold:
|
| http://www.slaapwelrecords.com/
| ggrelet wrote:
| << Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 >>
|
| Vol. 1 is not really ambient but is a masterpiece nonetheless.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| Try the EoN app from Jean-Michel Jarre.
| sbf501 wrote:
| Steve Reich did a number of pieces that are loopy and
| programatic in the 1960's and 70's, but with analog
| instruments. Kind of like Javanese Gamelan but more western
| style.
|
| Music for 18 Musicians
|
| The Desert Music
|
| Drumming
|
| I think it is debatable if they are "ambient", since some get
| quite loud, but they are meditative.
| maupin wrote:
| Milieu's soundtrack to Eufloria,
| https://milieumusic.bandcamp.com/album/eufloria
| 12bits wrote:
| Check out Astral Industries
| (https://www.astralindustries.co.uk/) and Silent Season
| (http://www.silentseason.com/) - this is another good place to
| "dig" for ambient stuff https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-ambient
| - cheers!
| tjakab wrote:
| I'll throw in the 'Ghosts' series by Nine Inch Nails. These
| land somewhere between Eno and Aphex Twin and were basically a
| precursor to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's soundtrack work
| (some of which may also be worth a listen).
| retrocryptid wrote:
| I recently read the 33 1/3 text on Another Green World. This is a
| good addendum to that. Also, if you haven't heard Bang on a Can's
| version of MfA, it's worth a listen.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Brian-Enos-Another-Green-World/dp/082...
| https://www.amazon.com/Music-Airports-Brian-Eno/dp/B0000069C...
| uf00lme wrote:
| This is my goto music for helping getting calm and to sleep after
| bed time stories.
| xipho wrote:
| If you aren't particularly musical, like myself, but love the
| concept of playing with loops, ambient sounds, etc. give the
| fully open-source https://www.bespokesynth.com/ a try, it has a
| brilliant pro tier option as well ;).
|
| A simple MIDI source keyboard can help you find the notes that
| sound pleasing, then you can code them in. Python support, etc.
| etc.
| Ensydr wrote:
| I wonder if there is something similar for elevator music?
| aniijbod wrote:
| Eno's most celebrated musical experiments were not exclusively
| confined to ambient music. He was also involved in a project
| which asked the question: what would it sound like if you created
| an orchestra which used standard, established musical
| instruments, playing well-known classical standard themes, but
| one that was composed of a combination of both fully competent
| musicians and totally inexperienced and utterly incompetent
| first-timers? Eno's answer was that you would produce
| extraordinary musical experiences for the listener which amounted
| to a unique combination of choice and chance. For me and many
| others, his translated into some of the funniest musical
| experiences I have ever known. Please listen to The Portsmouth
| Sinfonia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpJ6anurfuw
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think you missed the most vital part of the PS: nobody was
| allowed to play "their instrument", if they had one. So
| violinists were not allowed to play violin, bass players could
| not play bass, etc.
| rocky_raccoon wrote:
| This reminds me of "Zaireeka" by the Flaming Lips, an album that
| was sold as four separate CDs and you would have to cobble
| together every boombox, stereo, and Walkman in your house to try
| and play them all at the same time. So, you would hit the "play"
| button on disc #1, frantically try to match your timing with disc
| #2, inevitably be a few seconds late on disc #3, etc. The end
| result was that the music never sounded the same twice,
| especially once you started experimenting with mixing and
| matching a few of the discs together instead of all four at once.
| thomasfl wrote:
| This would be impossible to play on Spotify, without several
| Spotify accounts. It might explain why these tracks has been
| mixed together on Spotify.
| rocky_raccoon wrote:
| I've listened to the "combined" version on Spotify and it
| just doesn't have the same effect. I can distinctly remember
| having a "WOW" moment the very first time I tried to play all
| of the CDs together and certain tracks synced up together. I
| couldn't recreate it a second time though -- each attempt was
| a bit different.
| flobosg wrote:
| Other albums with the same idea:
| https://rateyourmusic.com/list/fidwell/synchronizing-albums/
| vlunkr wrote:
| I tried to create a website that would play this. Basically an
| ad hoc surround sound. The theory was that people would load it
| on 4 different devices, and one play button would start them
| simultaneously through websocket messages. Unfortunately I
| learned that the timing of the html5 audio element varies too
| much between browsers and devices.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The end result was that the music never sounded the same
| twice_
|
| Or that nobody played it, or bothered more than once :)
| rchaud wrote:
| I take it every CD contained the same tracks, but each played a
| recording of a single instrument?
| rocky_raccoon wrote:
| Pretty much. Not surprisingly, Wikipedia does a much better
| job explaining it than I did [1]. Zaireeka
| is the eighth studio album by American rock band The Flaming
| Lips, released on October 28, 1997 by Warner Bros.
| Records. The album consists of four CDs designed so
| that when played simultaneously on four separate audio
| systems, they would produce a harmonic or juxtaposed sound;
| the discs could also be played in different
| combinations, omitting one, two or three discs. Each
| of its eight songs consists of four stereo tracks, one from
| each CD.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaireeka
| sfvegandude wrote:
| The intention was for you to have friends with CD players, and
| all of you hit play at the same time.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| This brings back fond memories of a house party we threw in
| college where we got a bunch of gear and put speakers all
| throughout the house. So CD 1 might be playing through a
| speaker in the basement and BR1, CD2 playing in living room and
| BR1, etc. Made for a really cool effect where different rooms
| had very different feels, and certain places in the house where
| you could get the full mix.
| newobj wrote:
| Even if you start the discs at the same time, they won't finish
| at the same time. The timing skew on CD players was such that
| you'd actually accrue a few seconds of error over the course of
| the songs. I think I remember reading that this even surprised
| the Flaming Lips.
| danwills wrote:
| Very enjoyable information and resources! Loved it! Thanks for
| posting.
|
| I collaborated on recent years on a track that we think of as
| being 'ambient'. The video for it went on my YouTube recently,
| first time providing my own sounds with visuals! Proud of that
| milestone! Here's a link:
|
| https://youtu.be/WNAzrOBqpsY
|
| Eno is definitely one of my absolute heroes and such an
| inspiration! Ambient 4 'On Land', by Eno in my opinion is an
| absolute masterpiece, that really does sound like natural
| environments while still being musical, I listen to it a lot.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I had a great use for 1/1 in my career at a hospital helpdesk. As
| part of our small jack-of-all-trades group, we were responsible
| for the paging system, which was being upgraded.
|
| Our integration vendor had to test and set the volume of all the
| speakers and put on classical music. We realized that classical
| music wasn't probably the best choice in a hospital (figure that
| it can get very... dramatic) and the rest of the crew was
| figuring out what to put on overhead to carry onwards.
|
| I grabbed my iPad, hooked it into the paging amplifier, hit play
| on a certain song...
|
| ... and the paging system dutifully played 3 chimes indicating an
| emergency page, and 1/1 boomed across the hospital. A very
| healing-space-esque theme, very fitting.
| predictsoft wrote:
| Once (2001) gave Brian Eno a demo CD at an interview. He
| cautioned "I can't promise anything". I don't know if he ever
| heard it, but it was a cool moment anyway.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Learning to write a basic cannon at the moment, and this seems
| really similar, but with tape loops, instead of offset or
| syncopated melodies, in his ambient style the melodies are mostly
| rests. Are they they same, or is a cannon necessarily different?
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Dumb question. Does Brian Eno how to code? Does Kanye?
|
| Do any pop artists know how to code, or do they outsource ideas
| to people who do?
| Optimal_Persona wrote:
| I've seen some videos where Brian Eno is tweaking JavaScript
| code in Apple Logic DAW's scripting tool. But elsewhere I've
| seen Eno say, "With friends like Danny Hillis, there may not be
| much point in my learning to code in this lifetime."
| WilTimSon wrote:
| The details still escape me as I feel like I read the words but
| didn't get the meaning, which is by no means a knock on the
| write-up, I'm just a complete fool when it comes to musical
| technology and recording.
|
| However, it is a delightfully formatted experience and I spent
| several minutes playing with the randomize buttons on the site.
| Don't think any of the resulting mixes sounded bad, but Eno's
| original is, of course, unmatched. Would be interesting to see
| something similar for more traditional genres, where a song is
| picked apart and you can then randomize its bits and see if
| anything beautiful comes out.
| petercooper wrote:
| It's a quite different experience to a Web page, but if you
| want to play with messing about with music without becoming a
| musician as such, https://sonic-pi.net/ is absolutely fantastic
| as you can manipulate samples and sounds using a Ruby-like
| language. For example, this sort of fiddling:
| https://youtu.be/DdtcMf9YI7s?t=508
| chalst wrote:
| There used to be quite a thing for randomised conpositions in
| the Baroque era and later, called Musikalisches Wurfelspiel.
|
| There was also a thing around tape cut-ups in the 1950s, with
| William Burroughs being very into this stuff, with David Bowie
| later picking some of this stuff up. It was more about
| deconstructing expectations than creating something beautiful,
| but some of the material is very interesting.
|
| For the first, see
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musikalisches_W%C3%BCrfelspi...
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Incidentally, Bowie would even do this with lyrics. He would
| write up lyrics or some phrases, then cut up words or
| combinations of words, and move them around. That's why (I
| always thought), he lyrics gave off a common theme with
| really interesting and novel turns of phrase.
| achairapart wrote:
| Bowie even came up with a software in the 90s called the
| Verbasizer to further automate his cut-ups:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3IKLMgFaDA
|
| There is also a web app version at https://verbasizer.com/
| chalst wrote:
| Interesting. An associate of Burroughs, Ian Sommerville,
| wrote a program in the 1960s to permute lists of words to
| help Burroughs for similar reasons.
| achairapart wrote:
| Music is about tempo and sync. In fact, nowadays you can throw
| anything into a modern DAW software and it will instantly sync
| everything for you.
|
| Eno instead put randomness/chaos at play by using tape loops of
| different length, so they will never (or very hardly) repeat at
| the same interval again, or, in his own words:
| What I mean is they all repeat in cycles that are called
| incommensurable -- they are not likely to come back into sync
| again.
|
| Think of a series of little music boxes with each a different
| tune and length, you start playing one a time in random order,
| and the whole epiphany is that you expect chaos and dissonance
| but instead you still got an organic and nice harmony. And
| that's the basics of generative music, in the most simple words
| I can find.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| For another interesting musical experiment, listen to "Poeme
| symphonique", a "composition" that basically sets up 100
| metronomes, winds them up, sets them to random (I believe)
| speeds, and lets them play and wind down. It starts chaotic,
| until they eventually run out and form interesting rhythmical
| patterns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYGJmYKrI4
| bambax wrote:
| Didn't know about that! But Steve Reich also did many
| experiments with musical repetitions; his compositions are
| supposed to be played live (not rely on machines) but they
| can also be set up in a DAW. "Piano Phase" is pretty easy
| to implement for example.
|
| Contrary to the quote by Eno in the article, Reich's loops
| are be "commensurable" -- after a certain point they repeat
| exactly. It seems that's what interests him: some kind of
| mathematical predictability.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Reich's earliest experiments with what he terms "phasing"
| were done on (tape) machines. It was only after a few
| successful tape pieces that he began to wonder if humans
| could actual perform music composed around the same
| principle (they could!)
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It's very esoteric and even ponderous imho, but that's just
| speaking of his personal albums. When he comes in with other
| artists like Bowie and Roxy Music, he's an incredible
| collaborator and gives so much depth to the music.
| chestervonwinch wrote:
| > Eno instead put randomness/chaos at play by using tape
| loops of different length, so they will never (or very
| hardly) repeat at the same interval again, or, in his own
| words
|
| It's a least common multiple problem, right. The same idea is
| used with polymeters when things are on the grid instead of
| arbitrary lengths of tape loops.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Music is about tempo and sync. I
|
| That's an exceptionally limited definition, and misses out so
| much music from around the world and throughout time.
|
| It's also not even particularly reflective of how human
| musicians playing even "dance" music (which you'd think would
| be most exemplary of this definition) actual perform.
|
| Eno's interest in what used to be called "process music" was
| very much of the era (some of the minimalists had similar
| interests), and they were much less about avoid avoiding
| particular characteristics of music as reinventing the
| compositional process.
|
| Also, if the set of loops really are ill-suited for each
| other, you _will_ get chaos and dissonace. A good part of the
| art of generative music (a phrase that has taken over from
| the 60s /70s "process music") comes from carefully selecting
| things that, despite their somewhat random relationships,
| nevertheless sound good (however you define that) when
| combined using some algorithm/mechanism. That's a non-trivial
| thing to do.
| larrywright wrote:
| I discovered this album probably 15 years ago, and since then
| it's been one of my consistent go-to albums for when I need to
| focus on some work. Music with lyrics is too distracting for my
| brain, so I need instrumentals. This is a great one.
| formvoltron wrote:
| I was just listening to this last night. So good for getting work
| done. Too bad he didn't make more.
| nemo44x wrote:
| There's a few Ambient records. I know this because I have the
| vinyl records. Did they not release these digitally?
| DMell wrote:
| This and Untitled by Sigur Ros[0] are my go-to work albums.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(_)_(album)
| pfarrell wrote:
| Nyt article on 15 best ambient works from Eno [0]. See also
| artists released under the Obscure Records music label that Eno
| created [1]. Not like Airports, but my favorite album is
| Another Green World. Every track is a little intricate gem.
|
| 0:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220222224201/https://www.nytim...
|
| 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscure_Records
| formvoltron wrote:
| Wow thank you. This is a great gift you have passed to me. I
| so thoroughly enjoyed his ambient works that I've burned them
| into my memory proteins inside my head. To the point of maybe
| not enjoying them so much any more.
|
| It'll be very good to hear some new tracks.
| bejd wrote:
| I used similar techniques to make an ambient album in a couple of
| days. Rather than tape loops, it's just looping different length
| samples in Ableton Live. Here's a quick explainer video I
| uploaded to YouTube.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f38SHzR0HKE
| skhm wrote:
| This was a really pleasant read. Inspired me to spend a few
| minutes hacking together some out-of-phase pianos
| (https://twitter.com/harryaskham/status/1580174416889069570).
| chaosprint wrote:
| Interesting. What's this language? The audio comes with some
| distortions though. Perhaps limiting the volume and adding a
| filter can fix it?
| layer8 wrote:
| The language is probably Haskell.
| Kiro wrote:
| Nothing to fix. The distortion sounds good.
| austinprete wrote:
| Tidal Cycles! https://tidalcycles.org/
|
| As layer8 mentioned, it is technically Haskell but more
| specifically a DSL and environment for live coding music.
|
| Pretty fun to play around with!
| skhm wrote:
| ah it's not quite Tidal, though I have played with that
| too. This is csound-expression in Haskell.
|
| https://hackage.haskell.org/package/csound-expression
| tosser0001 wrote:
| The article mentions Eno did the cover designs. I've always
| assumed he took the cover images from real maps, but I've never
| found any mention of what they may be. It would be interesting to
| find them if that were actually the case.
| davidhariri wrote:
| I really like working to this kind of music. Is there anything
| out there in the internet that generates infinite Eno-style
| ambient music?
| uppyPuppy wrote:
| https://play.generative.fm/browse
|
| :D
| UmYeahNo wrote:
| https://www.flowful.app/ Can't promise Eno quality, but flowful
| claims something similar
|
| Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32149989
| sbf501 wrote:
| If you like electronic music, check out "Sisters with
| Transistors", a documentary about women in electronic music going
| back to the 1920's.
|
| https://sisterswithtransistors.com/the-pioneers
|
| Something like Eno's tape loops, in 1949 Daphe Oram was doing
| similar research with optical "tape" loops on some early synths
| she built. What's fascinating is how no one had any paths to
| follow, they were just throwing things at the wall to see what
| worked.
| zzzbra wrote:
| Doesn't look like anyone posted this also excellent article
| showing how to create one of the songs from this record in the
| browser (though I do believe it's linked out to in OPs link):
| https://teropa.info/blog/2016/07/28/javascript-systems-music
| randrus wrote:
| Not quite ambient, and (I presume) not aleatory, but Sleep by Max
| Richter has a kind of ambient feel - like Music for 18 Musicians
| it evolves slowly but intentionally, and draws me along with it.
| itintheory wrote:
| > Sleep is an eight-and-a-half hour concept album based around
| the neuroscience of sleep by composer Max Richter.
|
| Now that's a long album. Maybe good for sleeping to?
| tysehr37 wrote:
| Incredible how Brian Eno was able to pioneer this style of music
| Ensydr wrote:
| Is there a playlist of his music on Spotify? Otherwise someone
| should make it.
| tysehr37 wrote:
| https://open.spotify.com/artist/7MSUfLeTdDEoZiJPDSBXgi
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| In 1979, I saw Robert Fripp play frippertronics at the Washington
| Ethical Society. The looping Revoxes were there in all there
| glory. It was a sight to behold and hear. Parts of the
| performance show up on one of his albums
| parkersweb wrote:
| I went to see him speak at a music festival in the summer. He
| spoke about one of his recent projects - the 10,000 year clock:
| https://www.solidsmack.com/design/what-jeff-bezos-and-brian-...
| The idea is that modern living has been divided into smaller and
| smaller sub-divisions as processors get faster, media competes
| for attention and attention spans get shorter. The 10,000 clock
| was an artistic endeavour to engineer and design for a much
| broader time span - and every day the peal of bells is unique to
| that day only. I found the way he thinks about extending the
| bounds of creativity in new ways quite inspiring.
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